The Borrowed House by Hilda van Stockum

Oct10

Janna is proud of her membership in the Hitler Youth. She’s proud of her parents, famous actors, who have left Janna in Germany while they tour and entertain the troops of the Reich. Janna is also proud of having been chosen to play Brunhilde in the upcoming play that her youth group is going to perform, the story of Siegfried and Brunhilde from Hitler’s favorite opera by Wagner. Most of all, Janna is proud to be German and Aryan, and not a member of those inferior Jewish or Slavic races.

The Borrowed House is a young adult story, not because it’s about a teenager; Janna is only twelve years old in the book. And it’s not YA because of explicit sex or even violence, although there is some of the latter as the author describes the violence against Jews and others in Holland where Janna goes to join her parents. The Borrowed House is YA because it deals with mature themes of racism and indoctrination and trust and adultery in a way that is nuanced and complicated and respectful of the maturity of its audience. Janna is an unusual twelve year old, and she sees and understands things that most twelve year olds wouldn’t even think about. And there is a developing romance between twelve year old Janna and an older resident of the borrowed house that Janna and her parents live in. Nothing explicit or illicit, but the romantic subtext is there.

Maybe you should read this one yourself before handing it to your child, because first of all, it won’t be the right book for every young person. And secondly, The Borrowed House is one of those rare novels that adults can appreciate just as well as teens can. The book gives a lot insight into the way the German civilians looked at the war and at Herr Hitler as well as the privations and persecution and courage of the Dutch and Jewish people in Holland during World War II.

Republished by Purple House Press in 2016, this World War II novel is an excellent story and a definite discussion starter. Just think carefully about who would appreciate it properly and at what age.The writing and subject matter and characterization remind me a little bit of Madeleine L’Engle’s young adult novels. If you’ve read and enjoyed A Winter’s Love or The Small Rain by L’Engle, then The Borrowed House has about the same maturity level with some similar themes.

Firestorm by Robb White

Oct9

Robb White was the son of Episcopalian missionaries, but his stories are stories of adventure and war and survival. Mr. White is listed in Jan Bloom’s book, Who Should We Then Read?, A Busy Reader’s Concise Guide to the Best Authors of Living Books, Volume 2, and well he should be. I have read three or four of Robb White’s novels, and I was absorbed by each one of the ones that I have been able to find.

Firestorm is about a forest fire. It’s a short book, only 111 pages, but it’s perfect for reluctant but intelligent readers. The plot and characters and the ending are all surprising and give the reader food for thought. I was especially moved to think about what I would do in similar circumstances, as a boy and the forest ranger who believes him to be an arsonist are trapped together in a ring of fire that threatens to kill both of them.

I gave this book to Engineer Husband to read, and he was fascinated, too. I can’t tell much more, no spoilers, but this brief story reads like an excellent short story or novella with the same punch you would find in a well-written short story. I highly recommend.

If you like this one, you might also enjoy:

Up Periscope by Robb White.

Deathwatch by Robb White. Another survival story, this 1972 novel about a boy surviving in the desert while being hunted and hounded by a predatory criminal was both exciting and absorbing.

If you find any more Robb White books (he wrote quite a few), grab them, and if you don’t want them, then send them my way.

Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson: Book Empathy

Oct8

Book Girl: A Journey Through the Treasures & Transforming Power of a Reading Life by Sarah Clarkson.

Book Girl Discussion Question #6: In chapter 3, the author says ‘We understand our worlds through the words we are given.’ Can you think of a time when a passage from a book gave you empathy for or a deeper understanding of a person or situation in your life?

So many.

I recently read a couple of books by Western author Elmer Kelton, and although they are set back around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, they gave me an understanding of my own daddy and my grandfather that I didn’t have before, even though neither of them was a cowboy or anything like it. They were “good old boys” in their own way.

Hillbilly Elegy is another book that made me see my own family and upbringing and ancestry in a new way—I am a hillbilly from the flatlands of West Texas.

I also read The Borrowed House by Hilda van Stockum, bout a girl who is trained and educated as a Hitler Youth, and I was reminded of how difficult it is to transcend the limits of our childhood indoctrination and how we have to learn whom we can trust to tell the truth.

I understood the sharp pain of a prodigal son from my reading of Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, long before I experienced my own children growing older and making choices that I mourned and prayed over.

I understand a little of what it’s like to be a pastor in a small church from reading Jan Karon’s Mitford series and Bob DeGray’s We Never Stood Alone.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson gave me some insight into what it feels like to be an African American man in twenty-first century America.

Several books I’ve read, including those of Torey Hayden and Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin and Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, gave me some empathy and understanding of what it’s like to be autistic or to live with an autistic person.

Even though I didn’t get the pet-loving gene, I understand that some people do love their dogs and cats dearly because I’ve read James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small and other books about the bond between a pet-owner and his or her pet.

No Graven Image by Elizabeth Elliott gave me insight into the life of a missionary and made me realize that the missionaries I know are real people not cardboard saints.

I could go on, but obviously I’m a more understanding and sympathetic person because of the many lives I’ve explored through reading both fiction and nonfiction. What have you read that made you understand something or someone in your life better?

The Good Old Boys by Elmer Kelton

Oct7

The Good Old Boys by Elmer Kelton.
The Smiling Country by Elmer Kelton.

These books and others by San Angelo western writer Elmer Kelton embody the West Texas I knew growing up and the West Texas I heard about from my grandparents and others, far better than the hugely popular book, Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. I suppose comparisons are odious, but in this case I’ll make an exception. I thought the characters in Lonesome Dove were neither likable nor believable, but Hewey Calloway, although I certainly didn’t always agree with his decisions, was understandable and convincing and characteristic of the kind of men I saw and heard about in West Texas when I was growing up. Good old boys.

Hewey Calloway wants to stay a free and somewhat irresponsible cowboy. But life and changing times seem to be pushing him in another direction: settling down. Both of these books, The Good Old Boys and The Smiling Country, are about Hewey and his ongoing battle with himself and with the outside world to remain free and independent and also to make connections and conquer his own loneliness. Can he have love and family and also maintain his liberty and his allegiance to his own code of conduct?

At first, it seems that he cannot have both. Hewey must choose, and in The Good Old Boys, he does. Then, as happens to most of us, even the most independent and ornery, life and circumstances begin to narrow Hewey’s choices until it seems as if he can have neither the freewheeling life of a cowboy nor the comfort of home and family.In The Smiling Country, Hewey confronts his inability to stop time and change, and he realizes his own limitations and the isolation that his choices have imposed upon him. And yet, he also has made good choices that bring him friendship and support the he needs it the most.

Elmer Kelton was the farm-and-ranch editor for the San Angelo Standard-Times. Also, for five years he was editor of Sheep and Goat Raiser Magazine, and for another twenty-two years he was editor of Livestock Weekly. He wrote more than thirty western novels, set mostly in Texas, and he was awarded several Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America. In 1977, Kelton received an Owen Wister Award for lifetime achievement, and in 1998, he received the first Lone Star Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Larry McMurtry Center for Arts and Humanities at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas.

I highly recommend Elmer Kelton’s western novels if you are at all interested in the genre, and even if you are not. There’s a smattering of language, and the cowboys are not all pure, (but they are much more honorable than McMurtry’s Gus and Call and Jake and whoever else figures in that rather dis-honorable novel). I would suggest that you read both books together to get the whole story of good old by, Hewey Calloway.

The Buckskin Line by Elmer Kelton.

The Day the Cowboys Quit by Elmer Kelton.

The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton.

The Discoverer of Insulin: Dr. Frederick G. Banting by I.E. Levine

Oct2

I read this Messner published biography back in the summer, but I’m just now getting around to reviewing it. The dust jacket blurb says in a nutshell somethings of what I learned from the book:

“When Frederick Banting discovered insulin, he gave millions of doomed diabetics the gift of life. . . . Banting grew up on a farm in Canada. When his tomboy playmate Jane died at fourteen of diabetes, he was determined to one day find the cause of this mysterious disease. . . . Banting became a university instructor and researcher. He was still puzzled by the mysterious disease of diabetes. . . With Charles Best, his assistant, Banting sweated in a grimy attic laboratory, racing the time allotted him by Toronto University. Alternately sure of success and plunged into despair, they hung on grimly through a series of experiments. They succeeded in discovering Hormone X, but it took many, many months before they perfected the wonder drug—insulin.”

That’s the short version of the story. But I learned so much more about medical research and diabetes and early twentieth century medicine. Did you know:

* Until insulin, six out of every ten diabetics died of coma. And almost every juvenile diabetes sufferer died within a few years of diagnosis. Diabetes was a death sentence.

* Banting started out as an orthopedic surgeon, not an internal medicine doctor.

* Banting and Best killed a number of dogs in their experiments to isolate and produce what they called “isletin” (insulin), but they considered the dogs as “soldiers in the war against disease” and treated them as humanely as possible.

* Much of the research time they spent was unpaid. Banting and Best lived in poverty while they conducted their experiments to find the hormone that would control diabetes in those who were diagnosed with the “sugar sickness.”

* Banting received the Nobel Prize for his work on insulin, but instead of recognizing Charles Best as co-discoverer, the Nobel Prize committee named Dr. Macleod, the head researcher at Toronto University, who had been less than encouraging in the research of Banting and Best and not present for most of it.

As I have often said, I am interested in many things. This biography of a revolutionary doctor and medical researcher was an inspiration to persevere in the calling that I have been given, no matter how small. I’m not going to change the lives of millions of people with an incurable disease, but I am called to be faithful just as Banting was.

Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson: Books of Faith

Oct1

Book Girl: A Journey Through the Treasures & Transforming Power of a Reading Life by Sarah Clarkson.

Book Girl Discussion Question #9: In chapter 5, the author describes the role literature played in making her faith her own: ‘Tolkien’s story helped me to recognize Scripture as my story, the one in whose decisive battles I was caught, the narrative that drew me into the conflict, requiring me to decide what part I would play: heroine, coward, lover, or villain.’ What impact have books had on your faith and your discovery of self? Are there particular books or passages that have been especially meaningful to you on your spiritual journey?

Of course, The Book itself. I’m particularly drawn to the Psalms.

Definitely C.S. Lewis, both through his fiction and his nonfiction, has been a defining influence in my understanding of Christianity and of my relationship with God.

I’m also indebted to Christian authors such as Keith Miller, Bruce Larson, Elisabeth Elliot, Josh McDowell, G.K. Chesterton, Charles Colson, Corrie Ten Boom, Richard Foster, and Beth Moore.

Or to list it another way, here are a few of the Christian nonfiction books that have influenced and strengthened my faith:

The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. A small but wonderful book about praying without ceasing.

Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. Absolutely formative. Everyone should read Lewis, starting with this book. (Well, maybe start with Narnia, then Mere Christianity.)

Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. This book introduced me to the idea of “spiritual disciplines” and why it’s important to observe them.

Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell. I didn’t memorize all of the copious evidences that Mr. McDowell presents in this huge apologetic encyclopedia, but I did learn that there were answers to most intellectual questions about the Bible and Christianity.

Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton.

The Edge of Adventure: An Experiment in Faith by Keith Miller and Bruce Larson. This book did more to disciple me as a teenage Christian than any other book outside of the Bible. It might be somewhat dated now, but it was very helpful back in the day.

Keep a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliot. Straight talk, no nonsense devotional thoughts from Ms. Elliot’s newsletters and books.

Loving God by Charles W. Colson. I found this to be thought-provoking and inspiring, especially since I had already read Chuck Colson’s autobiographical memoir of his conversion during the Nixon years, Born Again.

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, Joni by Joni Eareckson, and God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew were all inspiring biographies that shaped my Christian walk as well. And I’m sure I missed some other books that were just as inspirational and formative. What books other than the Bible have shaped your thinking about God, Christ, and Christianity?

Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson: Books That Shaped Me

Sep28

Book Girl: A Journey Through the Treasures & Transforming Power of a Reading Life by Sarah Clarkson.

Book Girl Discussion Question #8: In chapter 4, the author says, ‘A great book meets you in the narrative motion of your own life, showing you in vividly imagined ways exactly what it looks like to be evil or good, brave or cowardly, each of those choices shaping the happy (or tragic) ending of the stories in which they’re made.’ In what ways have books shaped the story of your life?

These are the books I chose to list in a post about books that shaped or defined me back in 2005:

1. A Severed Wasp by Madeleine L’Engle. Why did this book impress me so much when I first read it several years ago? It’s about real people attempting to live authentic lives in New York City. It’s about community and how that community is formed. I’m very interested in how families interact, how intentional communities are formed and sustained, especially artistic communities and Christian communities. I think there’s something more there, too, but I can’t put my finger on it.

2. A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Van Auken. Van Auken tells the story of how he re-lived his life with his wife, Davey, after her death, by listening to the music they listened to together and re-reading the books they read together. It may sound maudlin, but it’s not. He also comes to terms with his loss and with the flaws in their relationship and with priorities, how marriage partners who find their ultimate security in Christ and His love can grow closer to each other. But those who hold onto each other jealously and possesively lose the thing they most want to preserve. I think I’m married the way I’m married, very happily I must say, partly because of this book.

3. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. C.S. Lewis talks about joy as an elusive longing for Something that is just out of reach. Tragedy is also an elusive feeling that depends on just the right combination of circumstances. Paton’s book about South Africa under the apartheid system and about the power of forgiveness to redeem, sometimes, is truly tragic. I also think this is what life is like: essentially hopeful, but tragic in the short run. Sometimes the Good is too little , too late.

4. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Life-changing. Lewis puts into words what I believe and why I believe. Definitely part of my mind’s landscape along with the Narnia books, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, and Till We Have Faces.

5. My first homeschooling book was John Holt’s Teach Your Own. This was before I had any children. Even though I use workbooks and curricula with my children, the unschooling, easygoing, let them teach themselves, philosophy is a part of my homeschool, too. I do want them to learn to learn and to enjoy learning, to be self-educators. I’m also drawn again to the sense of community that is present in Holt’s books.

6. The book that most shaped my life as a young Christian teenager was The Edge of Adventure by Keith Miller and Bruce Larson. I haven’t re-read this book in a long while, and I suspect it’s full of what I would now consider psycho-babble. But at the time the emphasis, again (note the recurring theme), on Christian community and basic Christian disciplines was exactly what I needed to hear. A lot of my ideas about prayer and discerning God’s will and following Christ in obedience came from this book.

7. All the Way Home by Mary Pride. I know that Mary Pride is a lightning rod for criticism and controversy, but her ideas about home and family being a center for economic, spiritual, and social influence were and are liberating for me.

8. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. Either I’m focused on the ideal of community tonight or else the theme of my whole adult life is comunity and how families come together to form real communities. I’ve wanted to live in Hobbiton, in a nice little hobbit-hole, ever since I first read Tolkien in the late 1960’s.

9. No Graven Image by Elizabeth Elliot. A young missionary finds that God is trustworthy, but not necessarily fathomable. I find the same to be true in my Christian life. This novel and the book of Job are my mainstays in the time of suffering and difficulty.

10. Cheaper by the Dozen by Ernestine and Frank Gilbreth. Was it from this book or somewhere else that I got the idea that it could be fun to have a lot of children and to teach them things in my own home? I think some of the nonfiction I listed above (and life) fleshed out the details, but Cheaper by the Dozen planted the seed of an idea long before I even realized the idea was there.

Hard task. On another day, I’d probably pick an entirely different set of books. And I didn’t even begin to list my childhood influences–the picturebooks that formed my imagination and the chapter books that made me think and made me grow. I’ll save all that for another post, but the ten books above have definitely shaped and do continue to define who I am. What books made you who you are or confirmed your direction in life and work?

I might tweak the list a bit after more than ten years of continued contemplation:

Instead of Mary Pride’s book, I would list The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer. Mrs. Schaeffer’s books about incorporating art into everyday life is and was inspiring to me as I lived a typical suburban life—and did it in sometimes not-so-typical ways.

The Hobbit was certainly an influence, but perhaps The Lord of the Rings did even more to give me images and role models for courage and perseverance and finding joy in the small things in life.

What books have shaped or defined your life and thought?

Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson: Reading in Fellowship

Sep25

Book Girl: A Journey Through the Treasures & Transforming Power of a Reading Life by Sarah Clarkson.

Book Girl Discussion Question #5: In chapter 2 the author gives suggestions for reading in fellowship. Do any of these recommendations resonate with you? Are there any that you’d like to implement?

Sarah’s suggestions and my response to each:

Start a book group. I’ve been wanting to do this for quite a while, and it’s just now coming together. Our first book club meeting is this week, and we’re discussing Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson! I’m excited about this new adventure with a group of ladies that I love and whose opinions I value.

Start a read aloud poetry group. This kind of group is something else I’ve considered for a while, but I think I’ll stick to the books club for now. Maybe we’ll eventually incorporate poetry into the book club meetings.

Start a book blog. Been there, done that. I began this blog back in 2003, (wow!), and it’s still going. Thank you to all the readers I’ve met online who have interacted with me here at Semicolon. I’ve enjoyed all the discussions of books and reading and even current events that have taken place here in my little corner of the internet, and I look forward to much more literary review and reflection.

Consider a local or online course in literature. Not now for me, but I have enjoyed the literature courses I’ve taken in the past.

I have a couple more suggestions for reading in community:

Join an online reading group or book club. If you can’t get an in-person book club started, there are many reading challenges and books clubs online. Modern Mrs. Darcy has an online community where readers discuss books that are selected by the inimitable Anne Bogel. Literary Life Podcast with Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins has a reading discussion group on Facebook. If you’re a member of the Reshelving Alexandria Facebook page, there’s a Reshelving Alexandria Reads page as well where members discuss specific book selections. There are many, many others as well.

Find a reading partner. Unlike a book club, which does take a lot of planning and organization, just getting together with a friend once or twice a month to discuss what each of you is reading is a low-stress, low-maintenance way to read in community. I do this kind of discussion informally with my library patrons, and I can see ways to incorporate more reading discussions into my life with friends and family.

How do you find ways to talk about books and reading with your reading friends? Or to use Sarah Clarkson’s terms, how do you “read in community or in fellowship”?

Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson: Reading Slump

Sep24

Book Girl: A Journey Through the Treasures & Transforming Power of a Reading Life by Sarah Clarkson.

Book Girl Discussion Question #4: Have you ever found yourself in a reading slump? How did you get out of it? Are there certain books or types of books that help you when you’ve gotten out of the rhythm of reading?

I’ve never really been in a reading slump. Reading to me is as necessary as eating. I have had times, especially lately, in the past few years, when my reading ability seemed to be impaired or limited. I was still reading, but the attentiveness and focus were just not there. I blame the internet. When I just can’t seem to pay proper attention to anything difficult or serious, I turn to comfort books, books that will always hold my attention:

Anything Jeeves and Bertie by P.G. Wodehouse.

Agatha Christie mysteries.

Rex Stout mysteries.

Jan Karon’s Mitford series.

Anne of Green Gables and the sequels by L.M. Montgomery.

These kinds of books, most of which I’ve already read once upon a time, will give me just enough entertainment and interest to pull me into a longer, more focussed attention span, and then I can move on to books I haven’t already read and try them out.

All it takes, really, to get back into “the rhythm of reading” is one really good book. One Good Book gives a reader hope for finding more good books, don’t you think?

Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson: How To Choose Books

Sep23

Book Girl: A Journey Through the Treasures & Transforming Power of a Reading Life by Sarah Clarkson.

Book Girl Discussion Question #3: In chapter 1, the author offers some guidelines about how to choose books and how to discern what constitutes good reading. How do you choose what book to read next? Are there people in your life whose recommendations you particularly resonate with?

Sarah Clarkson suggests we look at literary quality and worldview as we decide to which books we will give our time and attention. These are good criteria, but a bit slippery and subjective to apply. Many books that are supposed to be high in literary quality or that have a perfectly adequate Christian worldview are just not good for me. So, how do I choose what I will read? (Anne Bogel, aka Modern Mrs. Darcy, phrases the question, “What should I read next?,” and she has an entire podcast dedicated to answering that question for a diverse cast of guests on her podcast.)

I read a lot about books. I read other people’s recommendations. I listen to what other people are saying about what they are reading, and I consider the source. I don’t care for Christian romance novels or secular bodice-rippers, so if I know that your taste runs to those sorts of books, I probably will take your recommendations with a large grain of salt. On the other hand, if you love some of the same books that I love, I will listen to your recommendations with focused attention.

I try out books that I think I will like, and I’m willing to give up after 100 pages or so if a books is just not for me. I think both being willing to try new things and being willing to say that this book is just not worth my time are important skills to learn for a reader. I can’t read all of the books, and some of them are just not good—or not good for me at this time and place in my life. I don’t care for, and didn’t finish, several books that are favorites, even classics, for other people. I hated Lonesome Dove, even though I can read and enjoy other Western writers. I don’t plan to read any more Hemingway or Steinbeck in my lifetime, and I thought A Prayer for Owen Meany was both ridiculous and demeaning. But I did try all of those authors and books at least once, and if they are your favorites I do not impugn your literary taste. It’s probably something lacking in me that I cannot appreciate some books that many other people love.

I pick up whatever is handy or appealing. I make lists. I read whimsically and widely. I sometimes make a plan, and I sometimes throw out the plan. I read the latest, greatest that everyone else is reading, and I read obscure books that hardly anyone else has even heard of or read.

How do you choose your next read?